“That’s very nice and proper. But why shouldn’t you respect and love a girl who belongs to good society?”
“Miss Madden is a lady,” he replied indignantly.
“Oh—yes—to be sure,” hummed the other, letting her head roll back. “Well, bring her here some day when we can lunch quietly together. I see it’s no use. You’re not a sharp man, Edmund.”
“Do you seriously tell me,” asked Widdowson, with grave curiosity, “that there are ladies in good society who would have married me just because I have a few hundreds a year?”
“My dear boy, I would get together a round dozen in two or three days. Girls who would make good, faithful wives, in mere gratitude to the man who saved them from—horrors.”
“Excuse me if I say that I don’t believe it.”
Mrs. Luke laughed merrily, and the conversation went on in this strain for another ten minutes. At the end, Mrs. Luke made herself very agreeable, praised Monica for her sweet face and gentle manners, and so dismissed the solemn man with a renewed promise to countenance the marriage by her gracious presence.
When Rhoda Nunn returned from her holiday it wanted but a week to Monica’s wedding, so speedily had everything been determined and arranged. Miss Barfoot, having learnt from Virginia all that was to be known concerning Mr. Widdowson, felt able to hope for the best; a grave husband, of mature years, and with means more than sufficient, seemed, to the eye of experience, no unsuitable match for a girl such as Monica. This view of the situation caused Rhoda to smile with contemptuous tolerance.
“And yet,” she remarked, “I have heard you speak severely of such marriages.”
“It isn’t the ideal wedlock,” replied Miss Barfoot. “But so much in life is compromise. After all, she may regard him more affectionally than we imagine.”